Ana Lily Amirpour made an auspicious debut at Sundance with her A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night and now Kino Lorber has snagged North American rights to the first-time helmer’s genre mash-up. Described as the world’s first Iranian vampire Western, the black and white horror/spaghetti Western is set in an Iranian ghost town where the denizens are unaware they’re being stalked by a lonesome bloodsucker. Amirpour wrote, directed, and produced the film which landed a spot in Sundance’s NEXT section and was the opening-night selection of MOMA and the Film Society’s New Directors/New Films program. Argo‘s Sheila Vand stars with Arash Marandi (Kunduz: The Incident At Hadji Ghafur), Dominic Rains (The Taqwacores), Mozhan Marnó (House Of Cards, The Stoning Of Soraya M), Rome Shadanloo, Marshall Manesh and Milad Eghbali rounding out the cast.

Joining Kino Lorber on the film’s domestic release is VICE Media, which will partner on transmedia cross promotion and an aggressive social media campaign. Youth-skewing VICE, which last year teamed with Drafthouse Films on Oscar-nominated The Act Of Killing, is an appropriate distribution partner given the film’s soundtrack combining Middle Eastern fusion band Bei Ru, underground Iranian rockers Radio Tehran and Kiosk, and spaghetti Western-influenced Portland band Federale. Kino Lorber and VICE are plotting an October theatrical release with digital and home media debuts to follow in early 2015. Kino Lorber’s Richard Lorber struck the deal with Cinetic Media. “This stunning and stinging cinematic marvel left us speechless at its premiere, said Lorber. “We dream of finding visionary films that peel away the gauze, as Ana Lily does with rare originality in this unprecedented work.”

“Shot anamorphic and true cinemascope, this film is something we always wanted people to experience in the cinema,” wrote Amirpour. “Now they will because of Kino Lorber, a company with smart and daring taste who are as passionate about the theatrical experience of this film as we are.” Sina Sayyah and Justin Begnaud produced alongside Amirpour. Black Light District, Logan Pictures, and Elijah Wood, Daniel Noah, and Josh C. Waller’s SpectreVision are exec producers.